Song of the Crusader: part 2 of 'Empty Places'
by Lynne the Canuck
Summary: Leia faces the final test before being granted Knighthood. It is a test she believes she will fail.


  
DISCLAIMER:  
  
This is a work of original fan fiction based on characters and situations created by George Lucas and copyrighted to Lucasfilm, Ltd.. The intent of this work is for the entertainment of fans of the middle trilogy of the Star Wars saga, and is not intended to garner payment in any form. This work may be copied, linked, or re-posted as long as this disclaimer accompanies any such action and the author is notified in writing. Comments are welcomed, as long as they are civilised. Please do not respond with viruses, profanity, or any other destructive correspondence.  
  
* * *  
This work is a sequel to the fan fiction ... All the Empty Places You Walk. While it is not necessary to have read this story to understand the events in ... Song of the Crusader, such prior reading will flesh out the details contained herein.   
  
  
STAR WARS: Song of the Crusader  
© 1998 by: Lynne Freels  
www.westies.com  
  
  
Behind us, behind the armies and fleets of Britain and France,   
gather a group of shattered states and bludgeoned races ...  
upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend,   
unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer,  
as conquer we must, as conquer we shall!  
  
-- Winston Churchill  
19 April 1940  
  
  
... To die, to sleep  
Nor more; and, by sleep, to say we end  
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks  
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation  
Devoutly to be whish'd.  
  
-- William Shakespeare  
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark  
Act III, Scene 1  
  
  
  
  
  
  
PROLOGUE  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
BUN NA CRAOIBH NATIONAL FOREST, CHALUS  
  
  
  
Behind her, Detective Iasgair heard one of her subordinates yelp a moment after she let go of the twig she had moved out of her way. Smirking, she apologised over her shoulder. That particular constable had been questioning her orders and, to her mind, undermining her authority for too long. Such actions were not the best way to set an example or to correct the situation, but it gave her a certain adolescent pleasure nonetheless.  
The farmer stopped abruptly in front of the mud-soaked group of investigators. "They're four or five yards that way," he said and pointed West. "I can't go further. I can't look at them again. What I saw ... I can't see nothing else now."  
Iasgair put a hand gently on the traumatised man's shoulder. He turned to look at her, nodded his gratitude at the understanding he saw in her face, then ran back the way they had come.  
The Detective watched the man leave, then silently motioned her team forward. Pushing the last of the dormant brush out of her way, she involuntarily gasped at the scene before her.  
"Don't touch the bodies!" She instructed the others. "Leave them for the coroner. Fan out and begin analysis of the surrounding area."  
Iasgair took a deep breath, as her carefully placed boots crunched the charred vegetation encircling the two victims. She could not tell their gender or, in some places, where one body ended and the other began.   
Their deaths had been brutal. She hoped their end had also been quick.  
They lay at the base of an am feasd tree, what the locals commonly referred to as a for ever rood. Curiously, they seemed to be holding on to each other -- not in a manner indicative of fear, but of love -- suspended in a moment of supreme passion.  
In her twenty-one years of service, she had never been so moved, so ... obsessed, by a sudden desire to know who these people were. What had they done to warrant such a violent, such a lonely, death?  
  
  
CHAPTER ONE  
  
CORUSCANT  
  
Irritated, Jedi-Adept Leia studied the back of her youngest son's head as they progressed up the lift shaft toward the Upper Common Open Area of the Governmental Palace. "I really don't have time for this, you know."  
Anakin sighed. His patience with his mother was almost exhausted. Her uneasiness regarding her final test, before being granted knighthood, was puzzling because he could see no need for it. She had been through much greater trials before this.  
The doors of the lift opened onto what had previously been her brother's garden. Leia remained in the lift for a moment longer, taken aback by the sight of the crowd that milled about in hushed whispers. Their demeanour, no matter what species they were, was a uniform attitude of treading on sacred ground.  
Leia grabbed her son's elbow and pulled him down towards her. "What are all these people doing here?" Her initial surprise had evaporated into a mild disgust, and the tone of her question dripped with contempt.   
This was not lost on Anakin, who answered reprovingly, "You know very well why they're here. The first thing I sensed you do when we arrived was to touch their minds. It doesn't matter what their homeworlds' religions preach, these people believe that this place that Uncle Luke established, and where he died, is spiritually important to them."   
He paused as he surveyed the crowd. Some of them had taken note of the newcomers' arrival and had recognised Leia, pointing her out to others in their midst. From this action alone, in addition to what she gleaned from their minds, it was obvious that Luke was the object of their worship.  
In a tiny voice, Leia confirmed, "So this is my equivalent of Yoda's tree-cave test: to confront the barrier that Luke's legend has become to me."   
Anakin smiled down at his mother and quietly left her to grapple with herself.   
Slowly, she walked to the very spot where, a little under four years earlier, her twin had died in her arms. Lost in vivid, abstinent memory she took no note as the people around her dispersed back into the building.  
An eastward air current played the diverse leaves of a dozen trees like an instrument in song. As the cold from the stone on which she sat crept into her bones, she heard her name on the wind. Leia whipped her head around and, to her shock, found herself staring at Luke's translucent face. There were a thousand ways she could have greeted this apparition, but she found herself pushing her finger tips through the blue aura that encircled him with child-like curiosity. She touched nothing solid. She fleetingly wondered if all the ghosts of the stories she read so long ago were based on something like this.  
"You doubt I exist?" He asked.  
"Is this how Obi-wan came to you on Hoth?"  
"Yes. He's still here with me, as is Yoda and Father, and all who are one with the Force. You are too, Leia."  
She didn't respond right away. It had been so long since she had heard Luke's voice, that hearing it now brought forth a wealth of aged emotion. There was much she wanted to confront him with.  
"Why haven't you come to me before?"  
"I've always been with you," he answered. "You've never truly wanted me until now."  
Leia wondered if that was true. Had she been so intent on establishing her own reputation, on overshadowing the Skywalker legacy, that she didn't see him there all this time? In her political career, to survive, she had to be perceptive and diligent of all that was around her. Had she lost those abilities since retiring from the Presidency? She hadn't thought so. No, she was sure of it. If anything, her Jedi training had enhanced those abilities beyond what she thought possible. Luke had lied to her about a number of important issues in the last months of his life; could she trust him again?  
Looking straight at him, she challenged, "I was allowed access to your medical records after your death. There was a cure available, yet you chose not to begin treatment. You chose suicide, slow and painful, but suicide nonetheless."   
Her voice rose in pitch and hardened even further. "Did the war do this to you? I want to know why you sought death for the rest of your life after that. What came back to me on Endor?"  
Without hesitation, he said, "Because I love you."  
"I love you, too, but that doesn't expla --"  
"No," he interrupted. "I took stupid risks because I wanted to run away. I refused to listen to my heart and my spirit died as a result; my body just hadn't caught up to it yet.  
"Leia, I love you, with all that I am."  
In horror, Leia stood up and took a step back from him, trying to deny his words with physical distance.  
"Please! Let me finish! I thought death would bring relief or a certain spectacular experience, but it hasn't. Yet, if I was given the chance to live again, I don't know if I'd take it."   
In a rush, words rioted out of him. "I had abilities that appeared magical, divorced from nature; but they could not help me escape the need that burned and overwhelmed inside. I had the courage to confront Father, the Ssi-Ruuk, Exar Kun, Grand Admiral Thrawn, a legion of crime lords, pathetic dictators, and everything else, but I lacked the courage to affirm my feelings for you.  
"I didn't want to hurt you with this, but lying to myself all those years ate away at me. I thought if I could have a loving relationship with another, these feelings would somehow transfer to her. But, I could find you in no one else."  
If he could have, she knew, he would have clamoured for her touch to heal him; but the thought of his hand on hers was repulsive. His expression pleaded for her understanding, but she could neither forgive nor soothe him.   
This was too much.  
"I could never expect you to forgive me, let alone return my love," he continued, "so I kept silent, and never lived my life as a result.  
"I didn't want you to end up like me, simply existing because nothing seemed able to kill you. I couldn't let myself stand in your way, so I let the disease do what others could not."  
When she said nothing, he cried, "I was beaten! What I feel for you went against every law of every culture I've ever known. I could only lose, and I was so tired of fighting!"  
Leia's stony silence disturbed him more than anything she could say. This much was obvious to her; but she would hear whatever else he might sting her with, and so she remained.   
From hollowed depths, his chilling moan seized her very bones, forcing her to back away in real fear of him. "I wish it would just stop! I desperately want to be swallowed by oblivion. I'm so tired! This must end, as it should have four years ago!"  
His voice rang in her mind, fierce in its passion. "I'm sorry, Leia. I'm sorry for what I put you through. I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you. I'm sorry I lived half a life! But, I can't change my heart! I can't stop loving you in this way!  
"I need you!" He pleaded with the unmoving body. "Help me!"  
This was a greater obstacle to overcome than the one Leia believed she was brought here to face: one that she was not confident she could overcome. She could not think or feel anything other than a sanguineous rage. An uncomfortable silence welled up between them. Then, Leia's voice pierced the peace surrounding them.  
"How could you?! How dare you?!"  
"Because the sight of you was, and remains, the only thing that sustains me."  
He had misunderstood her, as she knew he would. Her brother had betrayed them both, just as surely as Obi-wan had betrayed Luke. Leia's fury, though, would not let her give the comfort clarification would offer. As much as he hurt her, she desired nothing less than to retaliate in kind.  
"You are a monster. Get out of my sight!"  
Tears ran down his insubstantial cheeks. Accepting the punishment she had sentenced him to; he held out his hand. His lightsaber appeared in it, at the same time it sparked on Leia's belt.  
"I won't come to you again unless you release me." And he was gone.  
Leia unhooked the inherited weapon and thumbed it on. Nothing happened. "Have your petty revenge," she muttered.   
Turning to leave, an unbidden thought burst through her shield of anger, cracking it. She didn't expect a ghost to be capable of crying. She didn't expect to be softened by compassion. As her anger began to trickle away, the vehemence of her reaction to Luke's revelation disturbed her, not so much because it lead to the Dark Side of the Force, but because it coerced her to confront unsettling aspects of herself.   
She wanted to scream.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
CHAPTER TWO  
  
  
The grizzled, heavy-set head of Intelligence sat casually across the table from New Republic President Tevv and his council of Chief Administrators. Absently, Tevv wondered if he should have a Two-One-Bee droid standing by to jolt the man into animation from time to time. Prodding information from him was as difficult as it probably was for the NRI Chief to extract his bulk from that equally padded chair. Outwardly, though, Tevv sipped some stim tea, his third cup that morning, and diverted impatience from his voice.  
"So what you're saying is that these so-called 'manoeuvres' by the Imperial Coalition have grown and are hiding ... what? ... some invasionary force? We have to be very clear on this before it can be brought to the Senate."  
"Like I said," the other began patronisingly, "the data from the stealth droids is still being analysed. I can't commit the department until that analysis is complete."  
Admiral Ackbar interceded before Tevv could comment, asking for the NRI's unofficial opinion on the situation in the Outer Rim.  
"Unofficially and off the record," the Chief emphasised needlessly, "A lot of our equipment 'malfunctioned' at critical moments. Too many to be coincidental. Only a few stealths managed to transmit anything useful before they shut down. They did not show a massing of fleets, such as we saw during the Rebellion, but that doesn't mean that the IC's aren't doing so somewhere where our stealths didn't encounter them."  
Here, he paused, as if debating whether or not he should disclose anything further. "There was one image which leaves very little room for doubt. We've seen examples of this kind of image before so many times that you almost become desensitised to it. People, the Empire is on the move again, and by the looks of it, we'll have to pull out some pretty fancy tricks to beat them back this time."  
The Chief's uncharacteristic openness dissolved, and his usual odiousness reappeared. "President, if you bring this to the Senate now, without the NRI's official analysis report, I will deny everything. I remind you that this is a closed session and you are all under restrictions of silence."  
Tevv was so sick of hearing this worn out caution that he dreaded every meeting he had with the man. Tiredly, he turned to Ackbar.   
"As far as the fleet stands, we are not prepared for a full-scale war today, should the Rim situation suddenly extend directly onto our borders."  
There was an audible snort from the NRI Chief, and Tevv silenced him with a warning stare. After a moment's suspension, Ackbar produced a data chip from his tunic and passed it to the President.   
"This is the specification, test run holovids, and marketing/promotional materials about the new S-16 E-Wings. FreiTek stands ready under the usual terms of our contract with them.  
"In recent tests, the advanced-designed X and A-Wing prototypes have performed within design perimeters; however, I would recommend further testing before using them in battle."  
"How much time would you need?" Tevv asked.  
Ackbar and his engineering team had been in the midst of preparing a report on the new fighters but, like the NRI Chief, he had not had the chance to complete it before the meeting was called.  
He knew what Tevv was scratching for -- an educated guess as to how fast these prototypes could be ready, mass-produced, and piloted in an emergency -- but was reluctant to commit to such a schedule. The cost in pilot lives was too risky under the current situation.  
Ackbar had spent the last twenty years trying to infuse realism into his reputation as a brilliant star-fighter designer who could deliver squadrons of prototypes as easily as his homeworld's plankton could repopulate. That reputation had been built solely on the B-Wing Heavy Bombers he had timely delivered into the desperate hands of Mon Mothma's Alliance against the monstrous apparatus of Palpatine's rule.   
There had been no time, then, for the luxury of tests. The Rebels huddled in primitive conditions, always in short supply, always in fear of discovery, springing sudden attacks in out-dated machinery against the great resources and industry of the Empire. Somehow, against overwhelming power, the passion, defiance, resolution, and idealism of the Rebels did not allow them to fail. They fought on, unconquerable, until the blight that was the Emperor was gouged from the galaxy.  
The Rebellion had been a time of desperation and debilitating fear.   
Although many had since tried to regain the ground lost after the victory of the Alliance at Endor, none had matched the terror of the past. Ackbar hoped never to re-live such a time, again.  
Sighing, he gave in. "Providing we have enough funds diverted, I can give you twelve squadrons within two months. This is only if priority is given by the contractors to our orders. In a declared state of war, however, we can give you thirty-three to thirty-eight squadrons within the same time frame. This is all contingent on resources, labour, and funding."  
The corners of Tevv's mouth crooked in a severe smile as he finally seemed to get the councilors to commit to their best estimates, should this government be faced with yet another Imperial Hydra's head. 'Monsters indeed existed,' he thought. The ones lurking in the darkest regions of the galaxy were far more terrible than those that hung under the beds of children.  
"All we'd need are pilots."  
"Conscription?" Someone offered.  
"No. At least not until we become desperate. They'll fight better if they follow their own conscience and ideals.   
"But the purpose of this meeting is to take stock of what we have and what we'll need in a hurry, should we be forced to arm and defend ourselves. Now, Admiral Ackbar has brought the issue of economics up. Councilor Calrissian?"  
Tevv was amused by the man's calm reaction. Most of the others would have been flustered at being called upon so suddenly. At fifty-five, Lando Calrissian, one-time smuggler, businessman, and General, had mellowed into an attractive, mesmerising presence.   
In a soothing baritone he began, "Well, you're going to need capital ships and transports to carry all those new star fighter squadrons. What you have to decide is the per centage of expenditure in an all-out war effort you can use to get your hands on these ships. You might want to consider adding a new coat of paint, as it were, to some of the relics you've got doing police runs and memorial shows. You might also try bargaining with the Smugglers' Alliance to get not only more recent model ships but supplies, as well."  
Tevv wryly commented, "I think I can guarantee they'll never be a consensus in the Senate on that. The SA is not the most popular of groups we deal with."  
"In a war, you have to use what you can get your hands on." Lando countered. "The SA is as legitimate as any other business we deal with. They could probably give us the best equipment for the money, if we play our cards right and say the right words. As for the Senate, someone will have to convince the members that if they want to continue getting their daily massage and spice dose, they're going to have to make a deal."  
"And that someone is me, right?"  
Lando sat back in his chair and smiled broadly at Tevv. "That's why you get paid the big money.  
"On top of supply and equipment costs are wages for the troops, and since life goes on for the majority of the New Republic's citizens, you'll need enough in reserve for daily affairs. Now, you're going to find your funds disappearing faster and faster as the war continues. New taxes won't carry you for long and certainly won't win you any votes in the next election."  
Tevv sighed. "Other than taking out loans that would outstrip all possibility of repayment, what option are there for financing this campaign?"  
"You might want to consider a lend or lease option on space and ground forces equipment. Use any and all suppliers who might consider this arrangement, including Non-Republic governments. In fact, they're probably your best bet because they have a vital interest in seeing us defeat this tyranny: if we lose and we're the entrée, they'll be dessert."  
"Do you always have to use food metaphors?" The Chief complained.  
Lando openly appraised the other's considerable girth, and shot back, "Food is one of life's great pleasures, and judging from your physique, you must be a very happy guy."  
A chime broke into the exchange before it degenerated further.  
"Yes, what is it?"  
"Mr. President, we have an urgent communication from our scoutship Herald."  
The NRI Chief ordered the transmission to be patched through. Tevv glared at him. There had been no authorisation, official or otherwise, to send in an Intelligence team. He filed this incident away to discuss later with the Chief regarding rank and protocol.  
A static visage filled the vid-screen at the end of the meeting room.   
Standing, the Chief addressed it, "Captain Dehner, what have you found?"  
"We were approached by a defector who's asking for Amnesty of Conscious Guilt in exchange for vital information regarding the IC's activities on the Rim. He's here with me now. He says he has a record with him that proves what he told me."  
The defector pushed his way in front of the Captain and shouted, "Do I have Amnesty?!"  
Beside him, Tevv heard Ackbar inhale sharply in recognition. Sotto Vocce, Tevv asked, "Something, Admiral?"  
The Mon Calamari shook his head slightly in a negative motion. To the man on the screen, Tevv accepted the exchange.   
Relaxing considerably, the man told him, "Based on the Captain's glowing opinion of you, I've been sending the images on a piggy-back wave of this transmission. Had you refused, you wouldn't have been able to find it, even if you knew it existed. There's not much time. We barely escaped as it was. Switch to frequency 3927 Imperial Standard. It should come through."  
Addressing Dehner, the Chief asked, "What's you ETA?"  
"We estimate --". A jolt rocked the ship and a scared off-screen voice advised that the Herald had just been fired upon by enemy Tie-Fighters.  
"Return fire!" Dehner barked, "And get us out --". The screen blackened abruptly.  
Into the stunned silence that followed, Tevv ordered a technician to get a clear version of the sub-images the defector claimed to have sent, and adjourned the meeting for a few hours.  
In the corridor outside, Lando walked beside Ackbar. "Brazen of them, wasn't it? They must have either been desperate or don't care if we know it's them."  
"A little of both, I would think." Ackbar commented. "But the Imperials forgot that by destroying the Herald, they added authenticity to the defector's story. But we'll have to wait for an analysis of the record itself before we can make that assessment."  
"You recognised that guy." It was more of a statement than a question.  
"Yes." The Admiral conceded. "You weren't a council member during the Rasianar disaster --"  
"No. I was in the middle of it."  
Ackbar paused a moment; embarrassed he had forgotten about the other's involvement. "I apologise. General Solo is still greatly missed."  
Lando nodded in acknowledgment, and prompted the Admiral to continue.  
"In trying to stir support for sending out a rescue and reconascence team, I told the Senate about the time when Mon Calamari was being overrun and conquered by the Empire. A stormtrooper told me that we were being subjugated simply because we lacked enough power and strength to fight back. The defector was that same stormtrooper. You see, he had taken his helmet off, and his face and words are forever branded into my memory."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
CHAPTER THREE  
  
BÀS, THE OUTER RIM  
  
The first thing it noticed was the silence. It had never before considered the rattling noise its own breathing produced; it had always been drowned out by the sound of industry and of everyone trying to out-shout each other to serve their desires. Now, the mechanisms that fed the greed for materials and trinkets had been reduced to craters. Black scorch marks on the snow haloed what was left of their altars.   
The people had huddled together around what the Great Liberators had left of their society, as much to convince themselves of their sudden impoverishment, as to see how many others suffered with them. It shook its appendage at the irony of it all. Maybe the Empire had liberated them, but not in the way the government had anticipated.  
It glanced at the icy ground that spread beyond the city limits to vanish at the extremities of its line of sight. A frigid wind roused it from its stare and it looked around the circle, for once actually seeing the individuals that encompassed the gathering. Squinting, it checked for signs of variation, but could detect nothing of the Beast amongst them. All was uniform. It was beginning to think that maybe without technology, its people were starting to fall back on the old beliefs to sustain them.   
The majority of the group appeared to be loosing hope. There was no power to warm them, cook their food, bring them light when the night closed in. There was no power that would bring them self-respect. All they had was each other and hope. It despaired that that was not enough to survive by.  
  
***  
  
CORUSCANT  
  
The living room of the guest suite was dark and still. Leia wanted the same phenomena for her mind. In mourning Han, the numbness of his death passed and she could now recall him with affection. It had not been that way with Luke.  
He had purposely shut her out; she, his closest family. At a time when he needed support and love, he denied her need to give.  
In the four years that separated them, she had not been able to mourn him. And now ... and now ... knowing why he felt there was no other way out ... she wasn't sure she was capable of grieving for him.  
And so, the pain went on ...  
Leia had been laying flat on her back on the floor for over an hour, but the breathing relaxation techniques had only calmed her body. That place inside where she found stillness, and out of which she could act, was disconnected.  
It seemed as though her life was in a holding pattern, and before she could proceed, she needed to forgive her brother for breaching what was forbidden. And yet ... there was an intimate communion between them, and between this death that brought her a new life and the love that brought about that death; a death that occurred at the height of Luke's insight and power ... almost godlike.   
It was the existence of something eternal in that one moment of time when, at the instant of death, he 'passed' her and she was able to identify with what she could only refer to as undifferentiated consciousness. He and she were one.  
When she sank down out of this transcendence, she once again categorised everything around her in terms of opposites: male/female; good/evil; being/non-being; life/death. This duality was not what nature intended. Having actually experienced it, she knew that the eternal was inside her, but she could not enter that spiritual womb again, unless she could kill the dragon -- the force of civilization -- that stood guard at its entrance. She had served the dragon for so long, first as a Senator then as President, that it was such a large part of her life and values.  
Just as Luke lacked the courage to love, she lacked the courage to go against the monolith of national culture. She didn't think she could sacrifice the meaning those thirty years in politics held for her, for a new life motivated by impulses.  
Why was she even thinking this way? It was ludicrous! Ridiculous!  
Sitting up, Leia placed her hands in her lap. Inhaling, she slowly filled her abdomen, then her lungs, with recycled air. She held this breath for a while, then slowly exhaled. She did this several times until she felt her shoulders drop and the muscles in her back relax. Looking out the window at the new moon, she closed out everything around her, and focused her mind inward.  
"Leia, I need you."  
"Luke?"  
"I need you ... Leia? Are you there?"  
She tripped the intercom switch. "I'm here, Tevv."  
"That's a relief," the other quipped. "I was getting worried you didn't like me anymore. It took a long time for you to answer."  
Leia opened the door of her suite, leaning against the frame; lavishly alluring. "That's because you don't bring me moon bride bouquets anymore."  
Tevv smiled at her purposely exaggerated sensuality. She was teasing him in the manner long-time friends relaxed into. He kept his betraying eyes guarded under half closed lids. She was not interested in anything other than friendship with him.  
Hoping to keep the mood light for just a few seconds more, he joked, "You can't find them anywhere, now. Luke was the only one who could grow a decent batch, and I picked the last of them from his garden the last time I bribed you out of the Jedi monastery."   
His smile faded as he saw the expression on her face abruptly shift. Instead of relieving her, maybe these interruptions in her training were aggravating her. He hoped not. He didn't think her self-emersion in the Jedi Order was the path she should take. This outstanding woman was too passionate a soul to live by their Code. Like his attraction to her, he also held his tongue on this matter. She would find her peace in time.  
"Leia, we have a situation that I don't think I can get a majority to vote on in the Senate."  
"Tevv, I'm retired."  
His smile returned. "Ah. Ah. Ah. Once a law maker, always a law maker. It's in the blood."  
He held his had up to stop her protest. "The citizens need a recognizable face to inspire and motivate them before they're overrun. They, in turn, will force their representatives into fast decisive action.  
"All I'm asking for is that Leia, survivor of Alderaan, Rebel leader and hero, former-president of the largest democracy in the known galaxy, Jedi Knight --"  
"Not yet." She corrected quietly.  
"Excuse me, Not-Quite-But-Pretty-Damn-Close-If-You-Ask-Me-Almost-Knight-of-the-Ancient-Jedi-Order. I have to take a breath here, if you don't mind."  
Leia smirked at his bad attempt at humour, twirling her finger like a propeller. "Finish your question before my hair turns white, will you?"  
"I need you to make a rallying speech."  
"When do you need this speech prepared?"  
Tevv made an overly dramatic gesture of looking at a non-existent time meter on his wrist before he answered, "Ohhhh, let's see. It'll take us about twenty minutes to walk to the Senate Chambers from here; so I'd need it in, ohhhh, I don't know ... does twenty minutes give you enough time?"  
  
***  
  
Ackbar's shrill voice resonated throughout the Senate. "My warnings over the past four years were jeered at. Now, you see my vindication! I struggled numerous times with this Senate for funding of new equipment and weaponry. Now you see that we may not be prepared in time to end this crisis!"  
The accusation created a non-intelligible riot of shouts of protests and justifications from a number of senators. Tevv called for order, but the chaos continued.   
Finally, a Force-enhanced voice thundered through the babel. "There will be silence!"  
Everyone turned to stare at the diminutive figure in a hooded scarlet cloak.   
"Jedi Leia, you no longer have privileges here."  
"Although I have retired from the presidency, I cannot retire as Representative of Alderaan."  
The Gevanian Senator stood. After a pause to be sure he had everyone's attention, he commented, "We all share in the loss of that planet and her citizenry; but, and you'll pardon me for speaking frankly, there are very few Alderaanians left. Most have become nationals of other worlds. Technically speaking, when Palpatine dissolved the Old Republic Senate, your role as Alderaanian Representative ended. You did not take it up again in the New Republic, either before or during your Presidency. What all this means is, that your reasoning for being present here is inadequate."  
Leia had always harboured a dislike for this Senator. Obviously, he hadn't changed over time. She was in no mood to indulge his posturing. Not today.  
"Then I speak for the victims of persecution, brutality, and carnage under imposed conformity!" She howled. "I speak for the glorious dead who fought to free them. I speak for your mothers, sons, wives, and brothers whose voices have been silenced by compassionless, remorseless decimation!"  
Scanning the crowd, she continued. "There is no time for reproachment and harsh rhetoric for what has already past and cannot be altered. We must unify in action against the horrors the NRI and the Herald's visuals confront us with."  
In contrast to Leia's impassioned statements, in a casual voice Tevv commented, "Besides, she is here at my executive request. I will take full responsibility for her regarding any disclosure."  
This seemed to placate the Gevanian, who smugly returned to his seat. Tevv would have to tread very carefully around this one.  
"Gentlebeings, I move that we formally declare a State of War against the Imperial Coalition for the reason of gross transgression of the Treaty of Endor. This transgression has directly resulted in the devastation of several Outer Rim worlds and the enslavement of unknown numbers of these violated societies. I also move that a War Tribunal be established in due haste."  
There was little opposition to Tevv's motions. Many who had not been born until after the Rebellion, and who had not been exposed to the lesser threat of Grand Admiral Thrawn nine years later, were greatly shaken by the unedited sight of the slaughter and devastation of comprehensive invasion.  
"Brigadier General Antilles can correct me on this, but from what we just saw, it appears as though the IC's are using new model Ties in familiar stellar warfare formation and assault patterns."  
From his third tier chair, Wedge remained seated as he responded, "Well, it's difficult to analyse tactics based on the information we saw, but what there was of it and what we know from our on-going struggle with them ... yeah, I'd say their tactics look familiar. I also wanted to take this opportunity to familiarise the Assembly with the latest design models of fighters, recon/rescues, and ground assault ships that Walex Blissex, Admiral Ackbar, and their team of engineers have designed."  
Despite the gravity of the situation, Wedge privately allowed that part of him that was fulfilled and challenged through the design and maintenance of fighters to wallow in ecstasy. The only thing better than that was the unequaled freedom of flying, with nothing around you but stars.  
"Everything from the V-Wing 'Hawk' Airspeeders to the T-22 Space Superiority X-Wings have been overhauled, or in the case of the X-Wings and the S-16 E-Wings, completely re-designed within the last two to seven years. The specifications are available on your monitors.   
"Basically, what it comes down to is all-round improvement -- rate of climb, range and simultaneous tracking of weaponry, thrust and speed, countermeasures, redundancy tasks, manoeuvrability -- all without compromise to the pilots due to cockpit remodifications ..."  
Ackbar clarified this last point. "We only had time to adapt a small number of cockpits to differing species physiologies before this emergency arose; so, most of the ships FreiTek and the Mon Calamari Ship Yards have delivered are for humanoid pilots. This is because humanoids tend to volunteer to test-fly prototypes more than others, and that is the only reason. The Smugglers' Alliance has provided us with some older model fighters and transports that were designed specifically for certain races.  
"In any case, equal or superior firepower will mean very little if these pilots are not properly trained. Our standing fleet pilots are ready, but as more adaptable ships get delivered by our contractors, we are going to need more recruits ..."  
The Admiral's voice faded to a hum in the back of Wedge's mind, as he became lost in thought. Something about what he saw in the visual of a ground assault on Bàs was disturbingly familiar somehow. On a hunch, he quietly signaled Communications to summon Lieutenant Erush outside the east door to the third tier of the Senate. Erush had been the systems expert utilised to decipher the weaponry on Rasianar. Wedge hoped his hunch was wrong.  
"... met with abrupt responses of non-interference in their internal affairs."  
"Thank you, Admiral. General. Gentlebeings, it is late into the night. Let us adjourn until 0700 hours tomorrow morning when we will discuss strategy, ability, and long-term goals." That being said, the President closed the meeting.  
Leia placed a hand on Tevv's arm. "Wedge asked me to ask you if he could speak to the War Council tonight. He says he may have urgent information."  
  
***  
  
"... used silicon-based DNA-like units for instruction and storage, as well as nano and computer technology. Rasianar's main ground assault weaponry used organic components. It is a living machine that can take any form from records, even your own mind, to achieve its objectives."  
The image in the recording paused momentarily. Although his expression appeared composed, a ruined state clouded the familiar blue eyes. It was as if some frightful fiend shadowed his every step.  
Luke's voice had become fainter as he spoke. The debriefing was quite obviously exhausting him.   
The gaunt frame shivered in a sudden chill, and in a bare whisper he pronounced, "There must be no more miscarriages of technology such as this."  
The last trickles of his strength seeped rapidly away. His head abruptly fell back against the pillows propped behind him, and he lost consciousness.  
The transcript ended.  
Wedge looked uncomfortably at Leia, who continued to stare at the now empty space in the centre of the table. Lando also observed an uncharacteristic mute struggle cross her features. He placed a concerned hand on her shoulder.   
An imperceptible whimper passed her lips as she whispered, "He is my victim. In his murder, our crimes are consummated."  
Taken aback and confused by such a bizarre statement, Lando didn't know what to say.  
Tevv's subdued voice broke through the taut speechlessness of the room. "At least we know what was at the bottom of all those creepy children's stories. I just didn't realise how close to us the actual place was."   
"Change of name; same old game. If I knew what Rasianar's real name was, I would never have thought about surveying it, let alone basing a whole business on it." Lando shook his head in repulsed admiration. "Cyber-organics. No wonder those beaten societies on the Rim are telling us not to interfere. Each is hoping they'll be eaten last. "  
After another uncomfortable silence, Tevv stated, "I'm open to any tactics that will succeed against a monstrous offensive weapon that can disguise itself as your mother."  
"The Jedi are your only hope."  
Tevv was surprised to hear Leia respond. "Rasianar cyber-organics have been used for centuries with only insanity or annihilation stopping the process. I have enough issues vying for my own sanity right now, so I'd rather see this technology obliterated conclusively. If some truth can be extracted from the stories and legends, in addition to looking at the defector's visuals in a new light, the only one who emerged victorious was a Jedi Master. And he destroyed what was on Rasianar while he was weakened by illness."  
Wedge suddenly realised there was something missing. "If Luke destroyed all the weaponry on the planet, how did the IC's get their hands on it?"  
"Ummm, I might know."   
All eyes turned to stare at Lieutenant Erush at the back of the room. Wedge gestured for him to continue.  
"Well, and I don't mean to offend anybody, but has there ever been a scan done for pieces of Imperial equipment in the debris field orbiting Rasianar? I mean, maybe they got there before General Solo's Blue Flight did. Just a thought."  
  
  
  
  
CHAPTER FOUR  
  
  
The hood on her Jedi cloak had been pushed back to reveal an elegant hair style. The show about the Rebellion was, according to the marquee, in its 'Fourth Great Year' of capacity performances. To have the actual, living, protagonist about to address the citizenry brought a huge crowd to hear her, both in person and through the holo-vid company that won the rights to broadcast the event.  
Leia had cut her hair short while training as a Jedi, but for this occasion she had been talked into wearing a wig. She was told that people needed to remember her as she was years ago, a crusader, and that such an illusion could conjure up the drive and idealism of the past.  
She felt foolish.   
The President had just concluded his broadcast to the citizenry regarding the government's State of War, and now invited Leia to step into range of the recorders.  
She paused before speaking. Her youthful beauty had settled into the elegant features of time's passage. Her bearing was regal; her gestures, dignified and genteel. Silently, she thanked her adoptive father's sisters for all of their fussing with her as a child on courtly mannerisms.   
Han would have snickered at her use of what he had considered moldy artifice -- although, he wouldn't have used those terms. To him, his real wife was the one who relaxed casually at home. Leia could never convince him that the many masks she wore were all equally genuine pieces of her.  
She still missed him, but did not think of him daily as she once did. The best part of him was that he was never satisfied with routine. He always searched for excitement and adventure to challenge him. He actively lived life, and died the way he wanted -- in that beat up relic of a freighter, trying to save his friend. Although devastating at the time, she acknowledged that her husband's death freed her from the sterility of routine she had become entangled in but had, nevertheless, clung to desperately.   
She looked into the eye of the recorder, and wondered if Chewbacca was monitoring, and if the Wookie had finally found peace in the trees of his home.  
All of these fragments of thought passed loosely through her mind in a matter of seconds, and were just as quickly wrapped away.  
"The time is short, and so I'll be brief. This is a war of peoples, beliefs, and ideals. The insatiable, unnatural desire of the enemy will soon turn on the New Republic. Our ways of life must be preserved. All that we are and all that we mean to ourselves and to the future must not be extinguished.   
"If that happens, if we fail, all that we value -- our art, languages, traditions, culture, laws, history -- will succumb to the soul-destroying, darkest tyranny, made more abhorrent by perverted technology. I call forth, therefore to the last effort of all citizens to safeguard our posterity and progressive destiny.  
"Let us move forward together into the light, steadfast in our quest for victory."  
  
  
***  
  
  
Eight squadrons of E-Wings arrowed out of their third hyper-space jump into the final massing point just outside the Inanna System. Here they would pick-up the last shipment of supplies promised to them by the Angelus Administrator, before the Fleet moved en masse to directly engage the enemy.  
A solar system was always a welcome relief from the monotony of deep space travel, but this scene was breathtaking. Star-fighters lit up the tracking sensors as they practiced various manoeuvres. When viewed unaided through the cockpit window, they looked like fireflies flitting about the immense capital ships and transports.  
One squad of X-Wings veered off from the others in an apparent intent to engage the new arrivals. In flustered uncertainty, recognition codes were repeatedly broadcast over several NR secure military channels. There was no acknowledgment.  
The X-Wings increased their speed at the same time they assumed an attack formation.  
"What are they doing?!"  
"Is the recognition code transmitting?!"  
"Can we disable them without destroying them?"  
"We're friendlies! Can't they read their scopes?!"  
The General's amused voice over-rode the worried torrent. "Hold your fire and stay in formation."  
"Sir?"  
The General's timbre changed into a threat. "Did you not hear that order, pilot?"  
"I heard it, Sir, I just don't understand it."  
Amazing tenacity in this kid. "Just follow your orders! I don't have time to wet-nurse you."  
"Aye, Sir."  
At the last second, the X-Wings splayed and climbed out of the way. They were so close, the E-Wing pilots could read their serial numbers as they roared past.  
Laughter intruded into the anxiety. "Consider yourselves initiated! Welcome to the Righteous Cause!"  
"Rogue Flight! It figures. Your little baptism could have caused damage or casualties if you weren't as cocky as you think you are or if anyone disobeyed orders!"  
The E-Wing Commander interrupted, "Then it's better we test your discipline and belief in your superiors here, than during the height of battle with the enemy. Individual acts of indiscretion could cost a great number of lives and affect the outcome of the battle.  
"In any case, if you look at the targeting profile on your VDU, you'll notice that the default setting is on 'smart tracking'," he pointed out. "You couldn't fire on any friendlies, no matter how much you wanted to."  
Silently, the Commander cursed all who stuffed so many untested children into flight suits, full of propagandised dreams of adventure and glory. He hoped this slap in the face shocked them awake to their own mortality and bloodlust.  
He had build his life around his grandfather's poem about his homeworld. The work had driven him like the winds had driven the snow around his childhood dwelling. It had become customary with him before battle to recite it to himself, almost like a prayer:  
  
This is the law of the [land],  
That only the strong shall thrive;  
That surely the weak shall perish,  
And only the fit survive (1)  
The Fleet positioned itself toward the last navigational point, and began to jump into hyperspace in sporadic bursts. The Commander checked the course heading in the navicomputer at the same instant his R7 astromech droid brought the ship's hyperdrive interfaces on line. Despite the crescending cadence of the engines heard in the cockpit, the words of the poem rang louder in his memory.  
  
***  
  
MATHAIR, GLASTON SYSTEM, THE OUTER RIM  
  
During Grand Admiral Thrawn's campaign, and even up to five or six years ago, the New Republic Ground Forces had been a fearsome force. Reduced in that time to police actions and downsized in ranks, it had been allowed to rust into obsolescence.  
The declaration of war once again swelled the ranks, but training was careless and disordered. What sealed their fate was the fact that, while a brilliant military theorist, the senior commander was inept as a leader. Thousands ignobly perished, simply because of his series of malformed decisions.  
These forces now found themselves attacking a well organised, well trained, enemy who had far superior equipment. This enemy also had had an unobstructed view of the landing and of the oblivious troops that exited the carriers. Some carriers never even made it to the ground before being blown out of the sky by ion cannons. Of those that did manage to land, half of the soldiers who ran down the ramps were slaughtered by concussion grenades and blaster fire.  
The counter-offensive had been stopped on the ground. Within two months, over 5000 soldiers had died.  
Looming over all was the unreasonable expectation and pressure from the government and the media for results. But the journalists sent to cover the war were sworn into the military. As a result, their reports were censored and grossly mangled. They were only part of the propaganda machine; so today, no one back home would hear of the thousands of civilians killed by V-Wing Airspeeder support raids.  
Rumours about racist treatment and execution of prisoners by the IC's, further demoralized the troops, who marched on regardless of whether their feet kept moving out of duty or trauma. They did not know, nor did they or care.  
The soldiers passed through carcasses of towns, all without signs of life, and wondered who would be left alive to liberate at the end of it all. Only exhaustion allowed them to sleep; but, the smell of their fallen friends' rotting bodies would always wake them up. The intensity and speed needed to take down more of the enemy than they did of them did not allow time for disposal or burial of the dead.  
Replacements had soon become scarce, so that the wounded were prematurely sent back to fight before they could recover. Command was starting to send in clerks and mechanics, at the same time they reduced the attack ratio to 3:1.  
What morale there was shrunk even lower as it became plain that the GF General, Simonds, was mentally breaking down. Impatient with delays from securing each settlement as they advanced, Simonds ordered four battalions under a twenty-six year old major to attack across a flat field with no cover and straight into the enemy's artillery fire. They would be trapped. They would die.  
In desperation, Major Griffin hollered into his comink, "Where the hell is the air support?! There's nothing covering our advance!"  
White noise answered him. Their communications had been severed from Command Base.  
Turning with resignation to those closest to him, he realised that Simonds was responsible, and that he -- it -- was artificial. Looking at the faces of those he commanded, he wondered how many more were the grotesque progeny of Rasianar's technological nightmares ...  
... The morning found a field of bodies, stretching from their starting point to the centre of the field, where they found the body of Major Griffin.  
"Had you arrived on schedule, this disaster wouldn't have occurred! Out of 12000 soldiers, only sixty reported back! These deaths are on your head!"  
Leia turned an icy glare on the General. "Had there been no opposition to the use of Jedi by certain Senators, there would have been no delay in the embarkation of my team. But this massacre is your fault, and I have pronounced judgment!"  
With blinding speed, Leia's newly constructed lightsaber ignited in a hissing red blade and swung in a blazing arc to decapitate the machine.  
"Feel better?" Anakin inquired dryly.  
Smiling humourlessly, his mother remarked, "Better than I have since the Rebellion."  
"You mean, before there was history?" Observed Jason, for which he was smacked in the shoulder.  
Jaina stood over the guillotined head. "I wondered why the sense of him seemed weird."  
"Yeah. And I was barred from the grievance meetings on Coruscant; so, I couldn't get close enough to sense how many of these things may have infiltrated the Senate, as well."  
A chirp sounded from Leia's comlink. "Jedi Team, we had a corvette go down near your location. Can you do a reconasense and rescue?"  
"What are the co-ordinates?"  
"Transmitting to your trans-scan now."  
  
***  
  
"Key lines of enemy defense have been smashed through within the estimated cost to our forces of the Third Watch units, ground offensive, and its counterpart the tactical airspeeders." Tevv announced to the encircled media.  
"In addition, our space fleet has successfully blocked critical supply and enemy attack routes. With these successes we estimate victory within --"  
"People of the New Republic," an imageless voice called over the inter-vid system, "We direct your attention to these images of your youth lying dead in a field; of your Jedi ruthlessly murdering your commanders. Despite the truth you see before you, your government assigns victory and indomitable spirit where there are none!"  
The voice concluded, "How can you trust leaders who lie, while they send your loved ones to perish on some planet far away? We call upon you all to tell your President to end this senseless conflict and bring your family members home!"  
Amongst the chaos that followed, Tevv turned to one of his aides, "Get Karrde's splicer ... what's his name?"  
"Ghent, Sir."  
"Ghent. I want him in my private chambers within the hour."  
Like cornered prey, Tevv turned back to face the media. "Quiet, please. My only comment at this time is that war is played on many fronts. Malicious twisting of the facts in the manner you just witnessed is one of them. Our cause is just. We will prevail against this force of perversion. We must take a stand for what is right, for justice, for truth, and heed the calling of our hearts. To refuse, is to cause the death of the spirit. We are determined to live! We are determined to be free!  
"That's all I have to say for now."  
In a fury, Tevv stormed back to his suite. He wouldn't use Ghent, he decided. He wouldn't use the same dirty tricks to sway consciousness. Each person would have to decide for themselves, to think for themselves. This was the very nature of free will. This was one of the many foundations of the New Republic.  
Just as the people had to have faith in him and his leadership, so must he have faith in the people. Perhaps a miracle would become manifest and wisdom would present itself.  
The President locked the door to his suite behind him, chose a cup, and selected the strongest liquor he had stored. After careful consideration, he chose a larger cup.  
  
  
  
  
CHAPTER FIVE  
  
  
"Water. Great." Anakin dejectedly unbuckled himself from the co-pilot's chair and started to head aft to get the breathing masks. "I'm glad it's Spring here. Freezing water and I don't mix."  
Jason had entered the cockpit in time to hear this last comment. Leaning against the frame, baring his brother's exit, he remarked, "Some Jedi you are."   
The older sibling altered his voice to the timbre of a young child. "Ohhhh! I'm sorry I can't help you until the water heats up to lukewarm!"  
"Shut up!"  
"You shut up!"  
"Both of you shut up!" Jaina warned. "How old are you anyway? There are ..." she closed her eyes as she delicately touched the minds of the crew members trapped at the bottom of the lake. "... Three unconscious beings down below."  
Leia also sensed the presence of a cyber-organic within the crashed ship. Whenever she probed one of these things, it seemed to leave a strange aftertaste in her mind.  
"I'm going down. The rest of you monitor my progress, but stay here."  
The protests came as expected, and no matter how her decision appeared to them, she was determined that her children would outlive her. They were all she had left and she would not lose any more of her family.  
"Mom, we're adults now. We're also Jedi Knights." Anakin reasoned. "We are sworn to uphold justice, freedom, and universal good --"  
"Whatever that is." Jason added.  
Glaring at his brother to not comment for once, Anakin continued. "I know that the deaths of Dad and Uncle Luke were very hard on you, but you can't let your grief stop us from making our own decisions and living our own lives. You have to let go."  
Jason, never one to take orders, added, "Besides, if one of those Rasianar things is down there, you'll need help."  
"Even if it's just to get the crew to safety." Jaina finished the thought.  
Leia sighed. As a mother, she still disagreed, but she knew they were right. Now she knew how Bail Organa felt whenever she went off on dangerous missions for the Alliance. She had been saturated with ideals, and both she and the Rebellion were so young they thought themselves immortal.  
"I don't ever remember a time when you three just did what you were told, without question."  
Jason laughed. "Why should we change now? Come on, let's go."  
A short time later, the rescue group floated outside the downed ship's emergency hatch. Once opened, the ship would swiftly flood. They would have to remove the injured crew quickly before the extra weight of the water drove the ship deeper into the lake bed.  
Anakin's green lightsaber blade easily cut through the lock mechanism, and they were all sucked through the hatch, tossed uncontrollably by the blind power of the onrush, and slammed hard into the bulkhead. Dazed, the Jedi struggled to their feet, half sloshing, half swimming through the corridor that lead to the bridge.  
There was no sign of the 'weapon'. Curiously, its presence had disappeared just after Leia had probed its mind, or what passed for a mind in such a creation. She started to worry further that her probe could be reciprocated ...  
Concentrating, she abruptly stopped swimming. Something familiar brushed her consciousness. Suddenly, a tingling sensation at the back of her neck made her whirl, lightsaber ignited and ready. To her shock, Leia found herself staring at Luke's face. The emotional jolt of seeing him alive slowed her reactions considerably. He took that opportunity to strike the breath mask from off her face and attacked her. She exhaled the last of her breath in a bizarre scream of terror, wildly clawing at his overpowering strength, before a blinding light fizzled past her. It seared into Luke's chest and wrenched him away from her.   
Luke -- but she knew it was not her brother -- floated limply, in the caress of the current that took him farther away. Leia's vision began to darken around the edges. She didn't even feel the hands that plucked at her collar.  
  
***  
  
The compulsion to cough woke her. She was alive. Leia felt the soft coolness of a sheet tucked snugly around her, and the steady vibration of engines through the floor. She was in one of the medical bunks on her ship.  
'It was a dream,' she told herself, and kept her eyes closed to add validity to the assertion. Maybe she had hit her head hard enough on one of those bulkheads to cause a concussion. The assault was an hallucination. Luke was dead. Nothing was going to change that. Maybe she was just losing her mind.  
Why was this happening now?!  
Jaina's voice floated up from somewhere beside her. "What I don't understand is if those things raped your mind for images to mutate into, why did it take the form of Luke instead of Dad?"  
Leia closed her mind from any further intrusion by her daughter. She felt immensely guilty for some reason and could not look at the growing accusation she saw in the young eyes. An uncomfortable silence welled up between them. Jaina's harsh voice pierced the speechlessness surrounding them.  
"It's in your bedroom! Anakin insisted on bringing it with us. Go to it, if you want to! I don't care!"  
Stung, Leia could say nothing as the young woman brusquely walked away. Jaina was giving her mother a choice; but, its insinuation was preposterous. To choose between what two things? Han and Luke?   
"You can't have much of a fulfilling romance with the dead," she hissed to the air, and she made her way aft.   
From the time she encountered her bumbling rescuers on Tarkin's Death Star until that terrible night on Endor when her heritage was revealed, she had loved them both. She had dreaded the time when she would have to choose between them. Her feelings were too powerful an ascendancy to do otherwise. All the while, she knew that when the time came, the other would drift away, to leave her with half a heart.  
Searching the useless pulp of flesh now, she finally acknowledged that in the last few years of their marriage, she did not love Han anymore. Not in the way she should have. She couldn't remember when she noticed this, or how long her feelings had taken to dissipate. He remained a good friend, a great father, and a comfortable, familiar fixture; but his machismo changed from roguishly charming to something that continually chaffed her. There were a lot of little habits of his that, after years and years of the same thing, irritated her. Some nights, she was glad some senator or ambassador had delayed her return home.   
Han had never been the cuddling type. He wasn't sensitive to her minor needs. He never offered to run errands or watch their three small kids from time to time when she needed to recover from the job. Her aide, Winter, was usually there to help; but if she was absent for any length of time, Leia had to pick up the tasks. Han was too busy working on the Falcon. He never surprised her with a romantic dinner by soft light. He never brought her bouquets of moon brides.  
He wasn't like Luke ...  
When Han died so senselessly, her guilt for wasting both of their lives was mistaken for a widow's inconsolability. She grieved for the loss of everything he was to her, but not for a husband. Just as Luke had used Gaeriel and Callista, Leia had used Han to divert unwanted scrutiny away from feelings too terrible to face.  
She had lied. She had lied for years; and those lies took root and grew into a brooding tree that loomed in shadow over something vital. Because in her silence, she maintained a charade, her life retreated into the darkest recesses of a cavernous insipidity. Her anger at Luke denied acknowledgment. The rules of civilization denied acknowledgment. Now, she was forced to confront what crouched in her mind's blindness.  
It seemed as though she had only taken her eyes off of her life for a little while, only to turn back to find it had been replaced by an automaton of what she was capable of. Leia was as much alive as that parody of her twin in the back room was.  
Now, as she crossed the threshold of her bedroom and gazed at the beautiful, grotesquely lyrical body lying in her bed, her heart beckoned her to follow.  
And somehow, she knew he was there.  
She gasped and looked to Anakin for confirmation.  
In a monotone, and without turning his stare from Luke, Anakin intoned, "According to the scanner, there's no damage to the mechanisms. The blaster shot burned the organics on the left side of his chest, but it shouldn't have been enough to disable him." His voice modulated in fervidity as he sifted through the impact of what he experienced. "Something else happened in the milliseconds after the shot hit him. It caused a shift in consciousness. I felt it through the Force. I can't -- don't know --. It's so frustrating! I can't describe what I felt!"  
Leia wrapped her arms around Anakin's slim waist. "Maybe his heart was strong enough to survive death. But that's a children's story. I won't believe that that piece of construction is him."  
"It is him, Mom. I loved Dad, but he couldn't understand me or what I wanted a lot of the time. Luke could. He was many things for me. I need him. I want a father."  
Leia disengaged herself enough to look up at her son. "You can't know what you're saying! That body is lifeless. It's not possible to reanimate the dead!"  
Barely audible sounds escaped the blue-tinged lips of the prone form on the bed. It was one word, repeatedly ripped from unbounded misery: "No."  
  
  
  
  
CHAPTER SIX  
  
  
"Sir!"  
Tevv stopped walking and waited for the Runner to catch up to him. "We just got this report."  
Tevv inserted the chip into his trans-scan and began reading, dismissing the Runner with a wave of his hand. He turned gravely to Lando beside him.   
"The IC's think they can make these people into a burden on us. In a cold way, it's the diversion we need and, I think, the provocation that will revive morale."  
Lando leaned over Tevv's shoulder to read what was there. Swearing, he said, "They're hoping to distract our attention with this away from a massing against Coruscant, itself. We were the target all along!"  
"Yes," Tevv agreed. "Whether we're ready or not, that is why we must move in for the kill, now. Strike at the very home of the Coalition. We can't afford not to."  
  
  
***  
  
Tevv's expression was somber as he once again addressed the NR citizenry. "Gentlebeings, it is my grievous duty to inform you of the slaughter of a great number of civilians in our neighbouring system, Cha'ann. This unprovoked, barbarous act of evil by the Imperial Coalition is meant to frighten you; but, it is they who act out of desperation with unthinkable cruelty.   
"We must find peace of mind in the performance of our duties. Even now, our forces have broken through Imperial strongholds and have liberated bludgeoned societies. Like antibodies attacking a disease, our cause of freedom is reverberating throughout the galaxy, as more peoples join us. The enemy cannot long survive against such growing numbers. We will attack on all fronts. We will conquer! We will prevail!"  
  
***  
  
His eyes were squeezed shut. He wouldn't allow himself to believe the unthinkable was true. Having begun as a slayer of dragons, he now had become the dragon.   
He knew nothing; the shock of living confirmed this.  
Everything around him clamored for his immediate attention, gorging on his unpracticed senses. He felt naked and unprotected.  
A soft, warm hand trembled as it tentatively touched his face. He started at the contact.  
"Luke? It's all right. I'm here with you, and ... and I love you."  
He opened his eyes to see tears track their way down the length of Leia's face, relieving years of pain. "I can't let you love me," he told her. "I'm a monster. You said so yourself. I am what greed would exploit and destroy. I love you too much to condemn you to a life of ostracism and fear." But his voice betrayed a rich plea of penury.  
Leia's face vacillated into serenity. She gazed at her reflection in the sensuous azure of his eyes, seeing overpowering hunger twinned there. Despite the chaos that drizzled and paced around her, she felt luxuriously weak; at peace ...  
... Her beauty burned him so that he could hardly stand it. After so long --! He thought if he moved his hand slightly to the right, his fingers could touch hers. Oh, gods! He almost cried out with the desire to feel the warm softness of her skin; to inhale the scent of her at the base of her neck; to taste her lips on his; to have her love him! He feared her choice. He feared that this miserable encasement that enclosed him would be incapable of enriching his soul, and would deny him his quest's fulfillment ...  
Leia sat at the head of the bed. Her scarlet cloak flowed over the white sheets like blood.   
"Our happiness is here, now. You and I are one. You are the counterpart of my soul. What you experience, what I experience, they are more important than the affairs of state and of society.   
"My will composes my life. You cannot forbid me. No one can."  
Her eyes lowered, and she said, "I've already been condemned."   
Anakin stepped forward then, and patted her supportively on her shoulder. As passionate and strong-willed as her mother, Jaina had closed herself from her last parent. Leia hadn't been able to breach the mental walls her daughter erected since they had left Mathair. Jason had said nothing about the pathos and reckless disregard that divided them all. He didn't want to understand, and refused Jaina's attempts to coerce his loyalty.   
And Anakin ... he was a contradiction to himself. At times, he was a typical twenty-year-old; gawky in his self-identity. Other times, a brooding silence hardened and aged his features into something unapproachable. For now, he simply looked at them both for a while more, trying to record what he witnessed to later convince himself of it, then quietly left them alone.  
Leia rose over Luke. This was her life.  
"I have the courage to affirm against tradition because I've found the courage to love you. It bears and endures all things. It is as you said: forever fixed."   
He felt her warm breath on his neck before her lips touched his skin. Strong, craving hands drew him up to her. In his release, he felt helpless and his head sank to her breast.  
"Because of you," she whispered, "I am alive."  
  
Hours later, the ship sat silently on the landing pad of the med-centre on Chalus. The last of the still unconscious crewmen had been carried down the ramp.   
It distressed Leia to see this rift in her family, but her daughter's feelings of betrayal would not be extinguished with reason. They all needed time to think.  
Brushing his sleep tussled hair from his cheek, Leia woke Luke. "We need to talk and plan what to do from here. I also need to get out of the ship and get some fresh air."   
She studied his appearance to compare it with her memories of him. Of course, they were the same. He would be recognised, and no one could withstand the sublimity of his rebirth. "Do you remember how to do the Jedi illusion trick?"  
He looked away from her for a second before answering. "Yes. I remember the technique, but because this isn't my natural body, I've lost my connection to the Force."  
  
***  
  
Luke pulled the hood of Anakin's borrowed Jedi cloak more forward to shadow his face. For the third time in as many minutes, his hand brushed away some fancied lint from the front of the common fabric. Leia's hand closed on his and squeezed. His skin felt warm and soft. It was far more realistic to the touch than his prosthetic right hand had been when ... what? When he was alive? She gazed at his face and thought about how it would always stay like this, in the prime of life, immortal.   
"I'm more of a burden on you than you anticipated," he told her. "I think I could spend the rest of my life apologizing to you for what I've put you through."  
"Then don't. Look, Luke, I can't possibly know what you're experiencing. You seem so calm about this, it astounds me." She exhaled and shook her head in confusion. "What I do know is that to a far lesser extent you're troubled by your separation from the Force. Regarding this, at least, I can tell you that I love what makes up the mystery of you, not the ability to levitate rocks."  
An odd little smile touched his lips. "I only seem in control because the magnitude of this absurdity is far too overwhelming for me to react to yet. I don't know how to feel or what to think." He reached out and held onto her, burying his head in her shoulder.  
Whispering, he asked, "Do ghosts dream of being alive?"  
  
"Ummm. I'm sorry to interrupt." So immersed were they within each other that Anakin's entrance had gone unnoticed.  
"Word of the use of Rasianar's technology by the IC's has drained all over the media. There's Republic-wide panic and rioting going on everywhere because of it. And .. we, I mean the Jedi team, got orders directly from the President."   
He reached into his pocket and took out a data crystal. "Tevv doesn't know about Luke, and I can't obey his orders. I won't."  
Leia closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. "I've been where Tevv is now. He's desperate and feels he cannot trust anyone. He's taking a great risk trusting us. Paranoia will bring down the New Republic just as surely as the IC's.  
"I can't imagine sitting across the table from someone you've known most of your life -- and it's not really him." Leia stopped herself; the irony of her situation becoming manifest like a slap in the face. Han had sat across the dinner table for years, eating with the stranger that was his wife. Leia had shared the essence of Luke through the Force for as many years, but it had only been his reflection. And now ... he was without illusion, but clothed in one.  
"I think I know what he wants the Jedi to do, " Luke said quietly. He reached a hand up to her cheek and gently turned her head to face him, but she refused to meet his eyes. "He's using the Rasianar mission as a basis for this quick-fix solution. The problem is that in some tech lab somewhere, a scientist is probably piecing together the last nano-structures that will mimic this technology. The government can't stop scientific progress or manipulation.  
"The politicians want it destroyed now because they didn't get their hands on it first, and they cannot control it. Since they can't defeat it with the technology they currently have, they know of one method that destroyed these weapons before, so they'll use that.  
"Leia, look at me."   
When she did not look up or respond, Luke tilted his head down and drew closer to force eye contact beneath her shielded vision. "We will loose this war without eradication of this weapon. It must be done swiftly and completely. Leia, I need you. I can't do thi --"  
"Don't," she silenced him. "Don't. I've sworn myself to you."  
Turning to Anakin, she asked, "We don't have much time, do we?"  
He answered with a mute shake of his head.  
Leia turned away from the two of them, and began to straighten and tuck the sheets on the bed. "I want you to find a secluded place near here. Make any arrangements for common transportation to the spot that you deem necessary."  
Her hand smoothed and stroked away the wrinkles in the top sheet. Her voice never lost its composure. "This is very important, Anakin. Do you understand?"  
  
***  
  
  
BUN NA CRAOIBH NATIONAL FOREST, CHALUS  
  
It was late in the evening, and the brittle light of the dying sun cast patterns of softening colour from petals and bowers onto the canvas underfoot. The fragrance of the coming night filled a breeze that passed by an am feasd tree and the two figures seated at its base.  
"There, between those two trees. See it?"  
Straining her eyes at the point where Luke indicated, Leia could just see the cusp of the rising moon.  
"Moon bride," he whispered.  
"What?"  
He smiled shyly. "Moon brides were always difficult to grow. They needed a lot of care, but I knew they were your favourite flower; so I experimented with soil nutrients, used less acidic water, and a bunch of other stuff, and they actually began to blossom. I got the greatest pleasure from sensing your delight as you walked through my garden."  
Touched by this, she forced herself to relax and return the smile. Leaning back against his chest, she was surprised to hear the strong and regular rhythm of a heart.   
"You remind me of a poem I loved to read as a child," she murmured to him. "I can't remember all of it, but the last few lines went: 'Sunlight in your hair./Summer's cloudless sky,/Forever in your eyes.'"  
Something touched tentatively in her mind. It was the others.  
Leia's frightened eyes met Luke's, and she knew it was time.  
"Hold me!" He cried.  
She desperately drew his face to hers, embracing at last.  
Then a blaze surged and swarmed through the Force, consuming them.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
EPILOGUE  
  
  
  
  
CORUSCANT  
  
Exhausted and worn, a relieved President addressed the citizenry. "Yesterday, at forty-eight minutes past midnight, Coruscant Central Time, we accepted the unconditional surrender by representatives of the Imperial Coalition at Arsouf, near the Outer Rim. Your support and dedication to tolerance, liberty, and progressive destiny deserves the gratitude of your government and leaders.   
"Let us rejoice! Victory is ours!  
"Long live the Republic!  
"Long live the cause of freedom!"  
  
  
***  
  
  
"... Though centuries have disappeared  
The memory still remains  
Of those enemies together.  
Could it be that way again?"  
Then the Fool said, "Oh, you Wise Men,  
You really make me laugh  
With your talk of vast persuasion  
And searching through the past.  
There's only greed and evil in the men who fight today.  
The song of the Crusader has long since gone away."  
  
-- Chris de Burgh (2)  
  
(1) "The Law of the Yukon", from Songs of a Sourdough, by Robert Service. © 1907 by Robert Service. The Ryerson Press, Toronto, Canada. 1933. p. 18.  
  
(2) "Crusader", from Crusader. © 1979 A&M Records, Inc.. ©1982 A&M Records of Canada, Ltd.. (SP4746).  
  
  
  
  
Star Wars: Song of the Crusader, © 1998 by Lynne Freels  
  
  



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